Perils of Being First
by Harkpad
Summary: The prompt was "a love note, an old enemy, and pasta." An innocent reunion for Ianto turns deadly when an old enemy sees him with his boyfriend. Said enemy has some serious anger issues. Ruminations on first love are the result, and Jack is hit with the reality that Ianto had a past before Torchwood. Warnings inside.


**A/N: This is for Talia as a belated Christmas present. I've owed it to her for a while now. I also haven't written for Torchwood in months and months, so I hope I did okay with it. It's also unbeta'd. Here is the Prompt: A love note, an old enemy and pasta. Warnings for violence and implied domestic abuse.**

"Jack, have you seen Ianto?" Gwen asked from her computer station as Jack wandered out of his office with his nose in a file and barely looked up.

"He asked to leave early today. Had some dinner date with friends," Jack replied, still poring through the file.

"Ianto has friends?" Owen chimed in, sliding back from his desk.

"He did grow up here, Owen," Tosh said, glancing up from the project she was working on at her station.

"Yeah, but then he left, and then he joined Torchwood, and now he does Torchwood. How can a bloke still have friends?" Owen replied.

"Just because you're socially inept doesn't mean he is, Owen," Gwen said with a grin.

"Have you met Ianto?" Owen replied.

"Owen, shut up and look at this file," Jack said and he thrust the file into Owen's hands and the discussion of Ianto's social skills was tabled.

Jack and Owen worked for a while at the file, trying to figure out how two reports of the same kind of sighting, one recent and one from an old Torchwood file, might show a new kind of alien that the team should look out for. Before Jack knew it Owen was yawning and they realized it was almost ten. Gwen and Tosh had left a couple hours ago, so he sent Owen home.

"We'll look at it tomorrow, okay?" Jack said as Owen pulled on his coat.

Owen nodded and gave him a "Maybe something will come to me after my third pint tonight," and a tired wave and left.

Jack pulled out his phone, dialing Ianto's number. On the fifth ring he finally answered, and it was quiet wherever he was.

"Jack?" Ianto said, and Jack immediately stood from the chair he'd collapsed in. There was something about Ianto's voice.

"Hey, did you have fun with your friends?"

There was a long pause. "Yeah, I did. Thanks for the night off." He sounded tired to Jack, tired and holding something back, if Jack were a betting man, and oftentimes he was.

"No problem." Jack waited, but there was only silence. Ianto was certainly not offering anything. "Do you want some company?"

After a long pause, Ianto said, "Not tonight, Jack, but thanks. I'll just see you tomorrow."

"Ianto," Jack started to protest.

"Jack. I'll talk to you tomorrow. Tonight's no good. I'm just going to go to bed anyway. We'll talk in the morning."

"We don't have to talk tonight," Jack said, realizing too late that it probably came out wrong.

"Jack. I'm going to bed. Alone. I will talk to you in the morning."

"Okay," Jack said, resigned. He and Ianto had fought often enough over boundaries that Jack had a hard time heeding, hungrier for constant company than his quiet lover. He didn't want to fight tonight. "Call if you need anything," he had to add.

"I will. Thanks, Jack."

Ianto didn't show up for work the next morning and Jack wondered why he picked last night to respect boundaries. When Ianto hadn't answered Jack's calls by ten o'clock, Jack was pulling on his coat and issuing Gwen instructions to only call in an emergency and Owen was mumbling about special treatment. Jack threw Owen a glare and promised to bring back baked goods if everything was all right.

He drove to Ianto's flat and parked next to Ianto's car. He rang the bell for a full two minutes before giving up and resorting to kicking the door down. When he entered the living area everything was neat and orderly as usual, but Ianto's favourite blue wool blanket was haphazardly thrown on the couch, as if he'd slept under it and rose quickly. When Jack went to the kitchen, there was a half-empty bottle of red wine on the counter and the dirty wine glass next to it.

What caught Jack's eye was a note and envelope on the wooden table. He picked it up and read.

_Ianto,_

_You say you're leaving town, going to London to live. You say there's nothing for you here now that your Tad is dead. But you don't have to go. You know I'll stay with you; we can both go to university and get a place together. It would be fun, Ianto. You don't let yourself have enough fun. You've been wound tighter than a drum for a year now; even when we make out you're looking over my shoulder expecting to get caught. We get our own place and no one can 'catch' us, Ianto. We can be together. _

_Let me worry about Johnny. He won't find out where we live if we get our own place. I won't tell anyone where we are. I promise. You've worn yourself out taking care of your family. Don't run away. Just let me help. _

_I love you, Ianto. I've never said it out loud because I was afraid you'd run. But you're threatening to run anyway, so there it is. I'm here and I love you and we can be together and have some fun. Just stay._

_Love,_

_Sam_

Jack sat down at the table after he read the note. He read it three times. After looking at the envelope, he called Tosh.

"I need you to run a name and address for me, see if they're still living in Cardiff." He gave her the information from the address on the envelope, and then he hung up to wait on the results. He went back to Ianto's bedroom and looked around, frowning when he found Ianto's phone on the dresser. After pocketing it, he checked out the bathroom. From the dry shower and dry towels, it seemed that Ianto hadn't showered that morning, and the kitchen showed no signs of breakfast. Everything pointed to rushing out the door.

Jack's phone rang and Tosh gave him an address on the other side of town. As he drove, he tried to think of what might have happened, but Ianto had never mentioned Sam to him, and he had seemed his normal self before heading out with his friends. Jack wondered if he'd been surprised by this Sam person's presence at the gathering.

After a drive, he arrived at a set of row houses and found the right number and knocked heavily on the door. He heard some shouting from inside, but after a couple of minutes the door opened to reveal a disheveled young man. He appeared to be in his early twenties, and he was shorter than Jack by a few inches. He had shaggy brown hair, hazel eyes, and his face had fresh bruises rising on his left cheekbone.

He was startled by Jack and took a step back. "Can I help you?" he asked in a rough voice, as if he'd just woken up.

"Are you Sam Weston?" Jack asked firmly.

The young man just looked at him for a moment, and then said, "Why?"

Jack was not in the mood for this. "Are you Sam Weston or do you know where I can find him?"

"And I want to know why I should tell you either of those things, mate."

Jack grinned. "Three reasons. One, because I asked. Two, because I'm bigger than you and have a gun. Three, because I'm actually looking for Ianto Jones and I will tear your house apart if you don't answer me right now."

The young man blanched and looked Jack up and down. "I'm Sam Weston. Why are you looking for Ianto? He should be home or at work. Dunno really where he works, though. He was vague about it."

Jack stared for a moment. This was Sam who wrote the letter Jack had read. This was someone who had loved Ianto years before Jack met him. This was someone from Ianto's past. All of these things suddenly threw Jack for a loop. Ianto had always just sort of appeared in Jack's world. The idea, however logical, that he actually had a past had been largely theoretical until this moment.

He took a steadying breath.

"He didn't show up for work this morning. He's not at home, but he left his car and his phone there. That's three very odd moves for Ianto. I need to find him."

Sam stared at Jack for another moment, eyes boring into Jack, and Jack had a fleeting thought that maybe Sam was realizing the same thing about Ianto's present that Jack had just realized about his past.

"Look," Jack said, stepping backwards a couple of steps. "I'm not going to shoot you. Just tell me if you have an idea of where he might be. He's important to me. I need to find him."

Sam just nodded and sighed. "Okay. Look, I was out with him and some old school mates last night. A couple of the other blokes had seen Ianto a few times for beers but that was the first time I managed to go. I hadn't seen him in years. We hung out and – Ianto didn't seem comfortable, you know? I don't know what you know, but we used to be together."

At that Sam stopped, looked down at the ground for a moment and then back at Jack sheepishly. "Not really together. You know, that teenage version of together, but whatever. Anyway, Ianto didn't seem comfortable. He didn't know I was coming. I wanted to surprise him and I wasn't sure I'd make it anyway, so he – yeah, he was surprised. He left around ten. That's the last time I saw him."

Jack didn't say anything right away. He was pretty good at spotting a lie, and it seemed the only lie in what Sam had just said was one of omission. Those could be costly, though. "What happened to your face?" He asked, calculating.

Sam looked surprised. "What?"

"What happened to your face?" Jack repeated, taking one step closer again.

Sam ran a hand through his hair. "Doesn't matter. I have a boyfriend with issues is all."

Jack thought for a minute. "Is his name Johnny?"

Sam looked surprised, and then angry. "What the hell, mate? How do you know about Johnny?" And then he shook his head. "No, don't answer that. It doesn't matter. He doesn't matter. He got pissed that I was hanging around Ianto last night and took it out on me a bit. He's always been jealous of – oh, shit."

And Jack had put it together, too.

Sam turned suddenly and called back into the house. "Sarah! Hey, Sarah!"

A girl's voice called, "What?"

"How long ago did Johnny leave?" Sam called.

After a moment she replied, "An hour. Maybe a bit more."

"Do you know where he'd take Ianto? Or have him meet him?" Jack asked.

Sam thought for a minute and then nodded. "Yeah. Let me get my coat."

They both piled into Jack's car and Sam directed Jack to an old neighborhood with only a few houses, spread a few hundred feet apart. Some of the houses were nice and some were not. It was an area of Cardiff that was struggling to improve, relying on young adults to move in and fix things up. They pulled up at one of the run-down houses and climbed out of the car.

"This used to be Johnny's house as a kid. No one owns it now and he comes out here sometimes to get pissed," Sam reported as Jack approached the house. There was shouting from inside.

"That him?" Jack asked?

Sam nodded, and Jack pulled out his Webley. Sam took a shaky breath, but he followed right at Jack's heels as they climbed the porch steps to the front door. Now they could hear Ianto's voice.

"Johnny, you're not listening. I wasn't looking for Sam. I have someone and a good job. I just wanted to go out last night. I didn't even know he was going to be there." Jack thought Ianto sounded like he was trying to talk someone down. That wasn't good.

Jack took a deep breath and raised his hand to Sam, counting with his fingers, one, two, three. Then he kicked down the door and they both exploded into the room. Jack wasn't counting on Johnny having a gun.

Johnny was tall, taller than Ianto and Jack, and he had black hair and hard, green eyes. He was dressed in jeans, a white t-shirt, and a black leather jacket, and when they burst into the room, he didn't even flinch; he just pulled the gun higher, aiming for Ianto's head.

"Johnny, no!" Sam called, and Jack couldn't move fast enough to stop anything. Johnny pulled the trigger, but Sam had already thrown himself in front of Ianto, whose hands were tied behind his back. After the gunshot, there was a moment where everything stood still, but then Jack fired, clipping Johnny in the shoulder, sending him to the ground. Jack stepped forward and kicked the gun away from him and then wrenched him up, twisting his arms behind him in a steel grip. He looked to Ianto.

His face was bruised and his lip was swollen, and his grey eyes were horror-stricken as he looked at Sam, who was crumpled on the floor, blood seeping from the gunshot wound to his back and from his mouth, indicating a lung puncture. He was already pale and glassy-eyed.

"Sam?" Ianto said, leaning down, his hands still tied behind his back.

Jack watched, but he kept a firm grip on Johnny and pulled out his mobile to call for an ambulance and the police.

"Sam, please," Ianto said, choking on a sob.

"Ianto," Jack said calmly. Come over here and get my knife from my pocket. I'll cut you loose and then we need to keep him warm and try and stop the bleeding."

Ianto looked up as if seeing Jack for the first time and then stood and did as Jack said, taking Jack's coat as Jack kept Johnny in his grip. Johnny, who had gone mute, just stared at Sam with a stricken look on his face. As Ianto wrapped Sam in Jack's coat and pressed his hands to Sam's back wound, Johnny just stood and watched, horror in his eyes. Ianto ignored him and Jack as he kept one hand pressed on the wound and carded his other hand through Sam's hair as he whispered assurances to his old friend.

It seemed like an eternity, but the ambulance and police arrived. The medics loaded Sam and Johnny onto a stretcher and let Ianto ride along, and the police took Johnny's weapon away and Jack gave a statement to the detective on the scene. It was pretty cut-and-dry, so Jack figured he might get a phone call or two later but would be done with it. Hopefully Johnny would be in jail for a long time.

Jack drove to the hospital and sat quietly with Ianto in the surgery waiting room, and Ianto let him hold his hand and after a while he leaned into Jack's shoulder and closed his eyes. Jack just held him until a doctor came out to tell them that Sam would recover. Jack took Ianto home to sleep.

A few days later, Jack took Ianto out to dinner. They met at the restaurant after work, an Italian place not far from the Plass. As Jack tucked into his spaghetti, Ianto sighed and asked, "Do you remember your first love, Jack?"

Jack looked up and gave him a small smile, nodding. "Yes." And then he went back to his pasta.

Ianto watched him for a moment, and Jack knew he was fighting with himself over whether to press Jack for information or not. He didn't and a few minutes later he chuckled.

"What?" Jack asked, sipping his wine.

"I guess that's the thing about first loves," Ianto replied, a grin tugging at his mouth.

"What?"

"That's really all they are, most of the time. Just the first. Which does make them important, but they don't tell us much," Ianto took a bite of his own pasta. And then he added, "Sam wasn't my first."

"Really?" Jack asked, surprised.

"I was his first, though," Ianto said, looking back up at Jack and meeting his eyes.

"That's a hard thing, too," Jack said. "Being someone's first."

"Doesn't tell much either," Ianto said with a smile.

"No," Jack replied. "It's the later ones that are most telling."

And Ianto nodded and gave Jack a grin and went back to his dinner.


End file.
